MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

Aubrey Chaves experienced a personal faith crisis as a young married adult relating to Church history and polygamy, and wondered if she should continue to be a member. Through a lot of questions and exploration, she expanded her faith and transformed her spiritual life. She now hosts the Faith Matters podcast with her husband, Tim.

Tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do.

I host the Faith Matters podcast, and I’m on the executive board of Faith Matters. I also have a small cake decorating business — I do wedding cakes and special event cakes. That’s an extra creative outlet. My husband and I have been married for 17 years, but we’ve been good friends since we were 12. We live in Utah and are raising our four kids here, and we do Faith Matters together. Tim and I co-host the podcast together and help with all the other interesting projects.

What brought you to Faith Matters?

I experienced a deep faith crisis and serious deconstruction in 2011. I felt like I discovered that the Church wasn’t true and I needed to leave, and we had to go find the “true church.” That began an intense journey of reading and listening and talking to people. For a long time, it was just between Tim and me, sifting through what we learned, what we genuinely believed, and what we really didn’t. It was a scary decade, trying to decide what to do.

We never got great answers. I have as many questions now as I did in 2011. But it has been a real transformation. What changed is that I let go of my obsession with certainty. I may never be able to prove that the Church is true, but I certainly believe it’s good and an anchor in my life.

I had a great upbringing in the Church, there was nothing disturbing about it. I had good leaders who cared about me and were involved in my life in the best way. In 2011, Tim started reading Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman, with a genuine desire to have a good answer for people who criticize the Church. He was disturbed by the history, and because it was written by someone who is active in the Church — it wasn’t somebody throwing bombs from outside. One day, he came to me and confessed with so much vulnerability that he wasn’t sure he had a testimony anymore.

If I didn’t have any concerns, I would have said something like, “It’s okay, I will be your support person, we’ll work through this.” But what had been happening for me, that he did not know was as soon as we’d gotten married, I felt tortured by the idea of polygamy.

I learned about polygamy in seminary with Jacob 2 — it was an exception, the real law is monogamy, so we won’t have to do it. That was enough to keep me from going any deeper. I could sit with the fact that someone else did and I just don’t understand. But when we got married and I had a taste of what an intimate relationship actually is, it exploded for me. I could not wrap my head around the fact that my great-grandmothers had to do this. Nothing was happening – we weren’t having conversations about it. But it was my intrusive thought for five years. I had to deal with the fact that polygamy was part of our history and not only was I uncomfortable, I didn’t want to become comfortable. It felt so degrading. How could a God who values women the same as He values men ask this of women? It was scary because the implication was, maybe the Church is not true. That was too big. I knew that God valued women, and then there was polygamy. That was the problem — it just didn’t work. I tried to imagine different ways that God could ask this but it never felt right.

So I leaned on Tim’s testimony. “Okay, Tim is so certain, I trust him and love him more than anyone in the world. If he knows the Church is true, that’s enough to keep me here.” I had so much guilt that I wasn’t okay with polygamy but Tim was a rock. So the second he said he didn’t have a testimony, the dam burst for me. I was instantly in faith crisis. As soon as he confessed, we had a much bigger problem, because I also had a problem.

It was the first time I could imagine that maybe I had been wrong the whole time, maybe it was never right. Maybe this was a mess from the beginning and that’s why it didn’t feel good to me, and the Church isn’t true. It was terrifying and our life turned upside down.

I read Church history obsessively and wept over Emma Smith and polygamy in Rough Stone Rolling. I read Doctrine & Covenants 132 and it sounded so traumatic and awful. That is not the God I know. If God had asked this of Emma, the God I know would have been comforting with unconditional love and reassuring that this is something beyond what she could understand. But it was threats and scary and felt abusive to me, I couldn’t see God’s voice or hand in those chapters. So I thought, then the Church must not be true – I had only an all-or-nothing context.

We do say that all the time, “the Church is true.”

It feels like certainty is of value. I started a big list of reasons why maybe it could be true and reasons why I was worried that it isn’t.
I came across Faith Matters when I heard a podcast interview with Terryl Givens, talking about a lot of the serious questions I had. But he didn’t seem to be in panic mode like I was. He was settled and it introduced nuance into the way I could participate in faith—completely open, acknowledging hard questions, not all-or-nothing, not a lot of certainty. He was very open about problems and didn’t seem to be disturbed. He talked about belief being a choice, because if it wasn’t, God would be compelling us to have faith, which is the opposite of faith. It was a huge epiphany — I was waiting to be compelled and I was disturbed that God wasn’t compelling me. I had always understood faith as a list of correct beliefs, something completely out of my control and scary. This introduced me to the idea that faith could look more like trust and that was the beginning of the shift.

We leaned into books that felt expansive—by Terryl and Fiona Givens, Adam Miller, Phil Barlow, Jon Ogden, Thomas McConkie., and found more people asking different questions and having those conversations. It wasn’t, is the Church true? It was, is the Church good? How to use the Church as a vehicle for growth and for connection? There was light again which was a relief, it felt soul expanding and peaceful, and I didn’t feel rushed. That’s how I recognized the Spirit. My energy was flowing into a new way of thinking about faith. There was time to be thoughtful and creative. There were bigger questions to ask, more than the very small black or white questions that I’d been so consumed by.

It was slow and steady and thoughtful. They modeled something that felt more mature. They weren’t weighing pro’s and con’s the way I had, or defensive about my scariest questions, or afraid of my “dark night of the soul.” They brought so much love and patience and peace to the conversation that felt like a life work where you could continue in this place, wherever you were. I could stay in the Church and work here if I wanted to. It didn’t have to be all or nothing.

I hadn’t heard of James Fowler’s “four stages of faith” yet, but I could see that their faith was different and I really wanted it for myself. I’d been in a stage where I was very comfortable and everything could be simply sorted into good or bad. But when something comes into your life that doesn’t fit neatly into a category, it can be disorienting and you could get defensive. There’s a lot of sadness, anger, and pain. That was my exact experience — nothing made sense anymore and I felt like I’d lost everything. I didn’t believe anything, and I felt confused and scared and mad. It was exciting to realize that this is a common stage of growth that people move through in their faith.

That’s quite the backstory, but if you hadn’t experienced all of that, there would have been no need to change and find Faith Matters.

Around 2017, Terryl started hosting a podcast called Conversations with Terryl Givens. I was so excited because I was always eating up whatever we could find that felt expansive. We saw that he was sponsored by a foundation called Faith Matters and did some Google sleuthing. We were eventually able to connect with the Turnbulls, two brothers and their wives who founded it, and we said, “Please put us to work. We want to be in these circles. We need to be with people like you and whatever this is. We just want to be part of this.” They were very new and did need a lot of help, so we jumped in and helped with little things, small events, and Tim helped with the website.

On Terryl’s podcast, it soon became clear that people wanted to hear him answering the questions instead of asking them as the host, so we stepped in as the people with real questions. We started inviting people who we’d been admiring from afar and asking them about things we were wrestling with.

That was the beginning of what I believe is a spiritual practice. For so many years, I tried to put away my questions because questions themselves felt dangerous. It has become a spiritual practice to scan for what is alive inside of me, what is scary and bringing up emotion, and to try to articulate what the deepest question is. Saying it out loud is a spiritual practice all by itself. It has nothing to do with the answers that come after. It’s that we’re accepting our fear or sadness and as soon as we do that, they really are transmuted and to me, that’s what the scripture means of “peace that surpasses all understanding.” It doesn’t make sense—logically, bringing up the questions should make it worse and make the pain bigger. But if you can be deeply honest, God can be with you in that acceptance.

A common phrase therapists use is, “If you can name it, you can tame it.” This sounds similar, because it’s outside of you to deal with, instead of in your soul taking up space.

Yes. I’d always imagined that if you deal with something the “right” way, you can earn peace. But I believe now that the important step is saying it out loud. It was such an unexpected gift to practice doing that on the podcast. We’ve tried hard to ask the honest questions. The responses are beautiful and have enriched our life so much, but the spiritual practice of asking the hardest questions has been so healing for us. I don’t have great answers. I definitely have more thoughts and I don’t have any more certainty than I did in 2011. But I broke out of the dualistic way of seeing every question as black and white, and my faith has been so enriched by asking all the questions and having these conversations. We’ve had really rich discussions and it is soul food. I feel so much more connected to God, my community, and to my very highest self than I ever did when I thought I knew everything.

In most podcasts, the host is the person giving information and the guest is there to supplement the host. The Faith Matters podcast seems to be the opposite—you and Tim have the questions and you bring in the experts because you want to know this stuff.

You nailed it, that is real life. What a gift to sit down with people who have expertise or have thought about something for a long time. When we first started the podcast, I couldn’t talk about some topics without crying because they felt so heavy and scary. We had to edit a lot because I was always falling apart. I’ve now had years of just saying the thing, it’s been so healing and I trust the process. If I feel existential fear, a little zing of something scary, I say it out loud. There’s so much connection to be had when expressing a fear, you connect immediately with the people you’re talking to. You also connect with the people listening because you know someone else resonates with the question. A sense of belonging in your pain and fear is the most healing thing I can imagine. It’s so much more comforting than even an answer.

How would you describe the Faith Matters community? I hear phrases like “progressive” or “nuanced” Latter-day Saints.

I don’t have a great answer to describe this space. We steer away from “progressive” because it insinuates that we know how the Church is supposed to change, we’re ahead and just need everybody to catch up. I don’t think that resonates with people, and it’s also a political term. “Nuanced” is problematic for me because it implies half-in, half-out. And that’s not what I mean, even though I might see some core doctrines differently.

“Expansive” seems to be a catch-all term. People who listen to our podcasts have maybe recognized some dissonance in the way they approach the gospel, and they’re looking for something creative, or inclusive, or expansive, that feels a bit new and different. It’s hard to describe because people are coming from so many different places. That’s also what I love about it.

Brian MacLaren has become a mentor—he’s a former evangelical pastor who has done a lot of work in spaces like this, but outside of our tradition. He can speak to these exact conversations we’re having, but he’s a few decades ahead and from a different religious experience. At the first Restore conference, he explained the stages of faith, which he describes as Simplicity, Complexity, Perplexity, and Harmony.

Harmony sounds like a beautiful place where you integrate everything, you have a lot more peace, and you’re not disturbed when everything feels perplexing. We had prepared to do a Q&A with him after his presentation and our question was, “how do you get an entire community into harmony?” Wouldn’t that be amazing if your whole ward was in harmony, everything’s integrated, and nobody feels threatened. But right before we got up, he said, “Having your entire community in harmony is not the goal. The goal is to have a four stage community. You want everybody to bring whatever they are, and feel totally loved and valued for the gifts of that stage. That’s what community should look like — you need all four stages represented.”

In some ways, that’s been our goal. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to describe Faith Matters. I hope people feel like we’re valuing their gifts in whatever stage they come to the table. If they’re happy in Simplicity, I hope that they feel totally valued and stretched, and that somebody in Perplexity feels totally valued and stretched. The most meaningful thing that we can do is help people find a sense of belonging in their faith community. Not necessarily that they’re in a new community with Faith Matters, but wherever they are, they have gifts that are important and necessary in the entire body of Christ. Whatever stage you’re in, we need you exactly where you are, you don’t need to change stages, and your stage is not better than anybody else’s. Wherever you are is exactly right. We need everybody.

I think that’s where we sometimes get hung up. Person X thinks their stage of faith is the only correct way and if you’re not the same, you’re doing something wrong.

I talked to Patrick Mason about this and he said, “Everybody thinks Zion is the stage where they are, Zion is everybody knows all the things, they all agree with you about the things that are messed up.” But that gets into an echo chamber. It’s validating and everyone could finish your sentences, but there’s no growth there. That is the most stagnant conversation to be in.

But when you have conversations with people who genuinely challenge you — you respect them but totally disagree on some point, that creates serious tension that you have to work on. If that can be experienced at church, that’s the recipe for Zion. That’s going to bring us to our most whole imperfect selves, if we listen to somebody next to us who we disagree with, but we love and genuinely try to see their point. Even if we keep disagreeing, even if the conversation is only in our own mind, think of what that creates. It grows our soul. It matters so much but it’s so hard to do.

If you don’t feel that you belong when you walk into a room, you feel like an outsider, you don’t feel safe in your own faith stage, then everything feels like a threat. This is why these conversations are so important to me—if you really believe that you belong, if you feel validated and secure somewhere, that gives you a bit more courage to into these places where you might feel more tension. You can practice stepping into those waters where you’re going to experience friction. If you start slowly, you stop feeling threatened. It feels like a growth place that is good for your soul, not tearing you apart. There is tension that can be destructive. But we’re trying to create belonging so people can feel safe exactly where they are and they can trust the process of growth and be confident in spaces where not everybody agrees with them. I think that’s how you learn to genuinely feel love.

We have a cultural belief that says, if you’re uncomfortable, the Spirit is gone. But when we go to the gym for weight training, it physically hurts to push our bodies. Discomfort is not always bad.

Discomfort is literally the precursor for any type of evolution. If there isn’t tension, there’s nothing to steer you in the direction of growth. It’s so weird that we picked that up, “I feel uncomfortable. Shut it down because that might be dangerous.” There are problems that we really do need to grapple with and it’s hard to have those conversations. Maybe that’s why I’m uncomfortable with the word “nuanced” — I don’t want people to think that I half-care. I care so much and I want the Church to be the very best version of itself. I am here and I’m part of it. I want to be here and totally inclusive. I want to shake it up. Part of the work of sustaining and being in community means that we’re calling out the things that don’t feel like God to us while also having the humility to know that we might be totally wrong. That’s the conversation I’m choosing to enter into. That’s the risk I’m willing to take — to get in the wrestle. I might be wrong, but this is me trying.

I see a lot more men than women in the Faith Matters network. What’s it like to be a woman leading in this space?

That is constantly on our minds, to amplify the voices of women. It seems like we’re overflowing with white men who are super qualified and reaching out, and they’re all amazing. But it’s been so much harder to find women to speak at Restore and to get our podcast numbers equal. I know they’re out there but it has taken a lot more effort. I think the optics are a problem and decision-making power is a problem but in my own life, women are very alive in God’s work.

My every-day experience feels so alive with women doing important things. My world is full of women at work in the spirit, keeping our ward afloat, knowing what’s happening with our neighbors and children, they’re making things happen and doing projects that aren’t loud. They’re not on a stage but they’re so powerful, like a current flowing in our neighborhood. Women are finding power in ways that might be harder to see because it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re standing on a stage with a microphone, or doing something loud and big in the typical ways that we define power. I see that every day. That’s power but it’s harder to see. Visibility matters, but that’s a different problem than having no power.

What encouragement would you give to women to step into their God-given power?

Thomas McConkie talks about “following your energy,” and it puts things into focus so quickly — where my spirit is trying to move me? For a lot of my life, it was confusing to nail down, “What is a prompting? What should I be doing?” The “shoulds” were so loud that I felt almost paralyzed. The idea about following energy completely opened things up and gave me so much clarity — I know exactly what I should be doing next. Where is my energy naturally flowing? I have decided to trust that’s how the Spirit speaks to me; that’s my litmus test. If I follow what literally energizes me, I’m going to go where God needs me next. Sometimes it’s energy that feels a little scary but exciting. Other things that feel like “should” are so draining that it literally makes me feel tired.

If you feel antsy to use your gifts, scan for what wakes you up, makes you feel alive, and energizes you. Whatever that thing is, start there. It might be a person you’re going to meet, or a little thing you’re going to write, or something you’re going to say. I think that’s often the way the Spirit speaks to our souls. This is your connection to God, so respect it.

There’s a book called Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore. The way he puts it is — respect what the soul presents. Notice what lights you up. If you love cooking, your soul is presenting cooking and that needs to be part of your life because somehow that connects you to God. The things that come naturally to us are the truest things about our souls. It’s the thing God put in us and we came to this earth with, so it matters that we figure out what those things are. Sometimes we push it off as selfish indulgence or a hobby, or I can do this thing if I “earn” it. Moore says no, that’s your connection to God, so respect it.

I’m going to follow what excites me and stirs my soul — that has been a trustworthy compass.

AT A GLANCE

Name: Aubrey Chaves
Age: 39
Location: Midway, Utah
Marital history: Married
Children: 4
Education: BA, Utah State University
Occupation: Podcast host
Languages spoken at home: English
Favorite hymn: All Creatures of Our God and King
Website(s) and/or social media: faithmatters.org

At A Glance